Islam ahmed moslam

22227783

Arab Academy for Science & Technology & Maritime Transport

Alex Campus- College of Graduate- CM Group (Online)

Mid-Term exam

Course Title: Contemporary Management Course Code:

Exam Duration: 2 hours. 30 Min Lecturer: Dr. Hesham Abdelhamid
Grade: 30 Marks Exam Date: 08/07/2023
Answer ONLY THREE questions from the following questions:
Question One (10 Marks):

Answer the following questions (true / false) and correct ONLY false one:
1. Rules are explicit statements that tells a manager what can or cannot be
done?
2. First-line management are mainly responsible for turning company
strategy into action?
3. Culture has a great impact on developing strategic plan of the
organization?
4. Risk is a condition in which the decision maker is unable to estimate the
likelihood of certain outcomes?
5. According to contemporary management perspective, top management
ensures the organization’ competitiveness and lower level managers’ and
employees’ job security?
6. Effectiveness is doing things right, or getting the most output from the
least amount of inputs?
7. Programmed decision, is a repetitive decision that can be handled by a
routine approach.?
8. Stakeholders are any groups or individuals in the organization’s
environment affected by an organization’s decisions and actions except
competitors?

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 9. The view that much of an organization’s success or failure is due to
external forces outside managers’ control is called the Omnipotent View
of management?

10.Bounded rationality in decision making that’s rational, but limited by an

individual’s attitude?

Question Two (10 Marks):

Assumptions:
1. Planning processes are much more important than the resulted plans from
such planning Do you agree or disagree and why?

2. By applying contemporary management concepts in managing modern

organizations, company can be certain about what will happen in external
environment and how it will deal with it, Do you agree or disagree and
why?

3. Organizational Culture can be considered a great competitive advantage

for the organization , Do you agree or disagree and why?

4. There are three types of managerial skills that managers need in

managing: technical, human, and conceptual, top management does not
need to have human skills as they do not have direct contact with the
majority of employees, Do you agree or disagree and why?
Case study:
Korean Airlines
Korean Air CEO Cho Yang-Ho had a challenging change situation facing
him. He wanted to transform his airline’s image of an accident-prone airline
from a developing country to that of a strong international competitor. The
number of accidents has increased significantly, putting shades over the
company’s ability to provide safe and secure services for its customers.
His focus was on improving safety above all else, which meant making
significant changes to the organization’s culture. What made his task even

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 more challenging was Korea’s hierarchical culture that teaches Koreans to
be deferential toward their elders and superiors, which results in great
hesitation from juniors to comment whenever elders violate safety and
security instructions, besides the high degree of favors towards the elders
manage always to cover their mistakes. The ratio of the employees over
40 years is almost 60% the reason behind this the low turnover rate of the
company and the aviation industry requires relatively long years of
experience to be able to perform according to the international standards.
Cho says, “It (the hierarchical culture) exists in all Oriental culture.” His
approach to
changing his company’s culture involved implementing a “systems
approach aimed at minimizing the personality-driven, top-down culture that
is a legacy of Korean business managers who place emphasis on intuition
and responding to orders.”. Korean Air is now one of the world’s largest
commercial cargo carriers, and it has earned a four-star rating (out of Five
possible stars) from a London aviation firm that rates airlines on quality by
applying their old culture. The fact that an organization’s culture is made
up of relatively stable and permanent characteristics tends to make it very
resistant to change. A culture takes a long time to form, and once
established it tends to become entrenched. Strong cultures are particularly
resistant to change because employees have become so committed to
them, although that young employees were trained intensively in the most
elite aviation institute but still has no space to criticize, or suggest or even
to express any solutions, because the level of empowerment is very
limited.
Based on your understanding of the case, answer the following questions:
Question Three (10 Marks)
Identify the real problem(s) that Korean Airlines holds and define the
reasons behind this problem(s)?
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 Question Four (10 Marks)
Identify at least five Decision-Making Biases and Errors, and decide
whether the company holds a strong culture or not, Justify your answers
whenever you can from the case?
Wish you all the best of success

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